Tag Archives: erotica

Book Review: The Witch and the Dreamwalker, by Victoria Rogers

I accepted a copy of Victoria Rogers’ The Witch and the Dreamwalker for review, as part of its book tour with Rockstar Book Tours. The book and it’s prequel were also featured over on Sadie’s Spotlight. Over there you can find author details and the tour schedule.

It’s 1982, and rising star Vivian McKinley is determined to climb the corporate ladder of a growing paranormal security firm. With the help of Xavier Prince, President and CEO of Prince Charms, Vivian uncovers a plot to take over the business. The pair navigate office politics and machinations to prove a psychic vampire’s treachery.

I have several things to say about this book, some good some bad, some fairly neutral. More than I’d expect for something so short.

First, I’m agnostic on the cover, but I will say it has nothing—tone, topic, content, etc—to do with the story inside it. It’s a pretty picture, but it hardly feels like the power suits, big hair, and machismo of 1982! Also neutral is that the magic aspects of the plot are extraneous. They could have been removed and the story and events could have occurred unchanged, just had non-magical explanations.

Second, on the positive front, the writing is perfectly readable, without feeling too cheesy. Even though I read an ARC, I don’t recall many editing mishaps. The early 80s is not a time period you see used in romance/erotic books too often and Rogers incorporated several period specific elements into the story, which was fun. I also appreciated seeing Vivian in boss-mode, taking no prisoners when she stands up for herself against the sexism of the time.

Third, on the negative front. Any impactful-ness Rogers might have built into the story by incorporating the sexism Vivian faced when everyone treated her as if she only got her position by sleeping with the boss was wholly undermined when she immediately started sleeping with the boss. Also, as I said, the magical elements weren’t pertinent enough to the plot to feel necessary, but similarly, the book’s unexpected swerve into Shibari/Kinbaku was sudden and not at all incorporated into the plot.

All in all, this wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t particularly memorable either.

Book Review: Solstice Surrender, by Tracy Cooper-Posey

I picked up a copy of Solstice Surrender, by Tracy Cooper-Posey, way back in 2013 and it’s been chillin’ in my cloud ever since. This year, I thought the solstice might be holiday-like enough to be included in my holiday reading challenge.

For Special Investigations Agency Operatives Destiny Tremayne, Jenna MacDonald and Nur Aydan, Christmas isn’t all about celebrating.

Jenna MacDonald, cynic extraordinaire, flees to Banff, Canada, for the holiday season to lick her wounds in private after an assignment takes a tragic turn. But trouble manages to find her even in the heart of the Canadian Rockies. A mysterious stranger called Rhys Cellyn exerts a powerful influence over her mind and body, while Jenna struggles to stay afloat in the mythical world he plunges her into. Time is against her, for at the moment of the winter solstice she must make a fateful choice. I’m going to get housekeeping out of the way first. I read this as part of my Holiday Reading Challenge, thinking that being set during the solstice might give this a bit of a holiday theme. But it really doesn’t. The solstice is important to the plot, but not in any sort of holiday-related way, not even a solstice holiday. So, it’s kind of a failure in that regard.

Moving on to the review itself, I knew I was in trouble when I read the note in the introduction that mentioned that this book had originally been written as a novella for an Ellora’s Cave anthology. Ellora’s Cave had a pretty predictable story format—lots of sex, very little plot. Cooper-Posey said she’d expanded the novella into a short novel, but I didn’t expect the sex to plot ratio to change. I was right, it didn’t. And while there was a time I quite enjoyed such books (that’s how I knew what to expect from Ellora’s Cave), now is not the time. So, I spent a lot of this book skimming.

I will assert that this was better than most of what I read from Ellora’s Cave, but it wasn’t very good when judged on its own. The writing wasn’t the issue. Other than a disconcerting and anachronistic tendency to use “for” in sentences, the writing is actually fine. The editing had a few hiccups, but nothing egregious. It’s just that the plot is so very thin and there is so very very little character development, world-building, romantic build-up, etc that the story barely holds together. And then there is a ton of sex to further destabilize it all.

So, I’m just gonna have to go with “Meh” for this one.

Come backlater this afternoon. I’ll be reviewing Charley’s Christmas Wolf, by C.D. Gorri and tomorrow when I’ll be reviewing The Problem With Mistletoe, by Kyle Baxter and Fighting For Us, by Bella Emy. Yeah, I’ve had to star doubling up to fit them all in by Christmas.

Book Review – Eternal: Micah’s Mate, by Tianna Xander

You guys, I promised myself that this year I wouldn’t find myself in mid-December scrambling to find the last few books for my yearly Author Alphabet Challenge. I was gonna have read a book by an author for every letter of the alphabet early this year. And I was on target to do it too. I had read everything except X and maybe U by about August. But man that X-author just kept right out of reach and here it is December 16th and I’ve just now made a desperate grab for an X-authored book, just like every year. Thus I read Eternal: Micah’s Mate, by Tianna Xander. I’m happy to be able to say it completes my challenge, but disappointed that I let it get this far into the year again. Maybe next year will be the year I get it complete early.

It feels like the whole world is against her – but that doesn’t mean there’s no time for love.

I was sure I’d end up alone forever. But as soon as I bumped into six-foot-six of tall, dark, and handsome male vampire perfection, my plans were thrown on their head. Being wanted for murder sucks – but after meeting Micah, things suddenly don’t seem so bad after all…

Micah swore to protect my father’s interests… even if that means babysitting his sassy and snarky daughter. He knows I have an attitude – but he’s still drawn to me. And between his skills and my interdimensional magic, we might just be able to make it out of this in one piece…

This simply isn’t very good. The mechanical writing and editing seems fine, but the plotting and story are a mess. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that this isn’t a story. It’s a series of random events connected only in that the main character is there for all of them. There is no story to become invested in because there is no story to follow. It’s just what random thing will happen next with no foreshadowing, buildup, or explanation before falling instantly into irrelevance. New characters are being introduced all the way until the end, which means the reader has no connection of care for them. Nothing has any emotional impact, because nothing is given any time to develop. There is very little world-building and a ton of inconsistencies even in what there is. Honestly, if I hadn’t needed an X-author for my yearly Author Alphabet Challenge I’d have DNFed this pretty early on.